Investigation opens into golf cart death

A catch-up investigation into the Monday death of a Knoxville, Tenn., woman who fell from a moving golf cart Saturday night in Sun City was started Wednesday by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.

An apparent communications mix-up involving Sun City security kept the Sheriff’s Office from responding to the scene when the incident occurred late Saturday night, Sheriff P.J. Tanner said Wednesday.

Burt DeFazio, chief of security in Sun City’s private community, said Tuesday that the Sheriff’s Office did not come in on the golf cart injury call because it was busy on another call.

But Tanner said Wednesday, “Our dispatch center never received a call asking for someone from the Sheriff’s Office to respond to a golf cart incident.”

Tanner said the Sheriff’s Office learned about case on Tuesday from the county coroner. He said Sun City security should have called the Sheriff’s Office in on the head injury case Saturday night, and Wednesday he sent a traffic reconstruction officer to Sun City to investigate.

The coroner’s office reported Monday that Anita Bergeson, 37, died Monday from injuries sustained in a fall from a moving golf cart at about 11 p.m. Saturday.

She was a passenger in the cart traveling on Col. Thomas Heyward Boulevard. When the driver turned left onto Cypress Hollow, and she fell off and struck her head, said Deputy Coroner David Ott. Both were visiting Sun City.

She died at Savannah Memorial Health University Medical Center from closed head trauma. Bergeson was an instructor at the University of Tennessee, according to wire reports.

“It’s going to be classified as an accidental death,” Ott said Wednesday. He said no autopsy was performed. “It was relatively clear what she died from, with the closed head injuries documented by the X-rays by the hospital ….,” he said.

Tanner said, “Our deputies were in Sun City for an unrelated call (Saturday night) during the same time that a medical call was dispatched for EMS to respond to Sun City. … I’m assuming (Sun City security) thought we were there for the golf cart call, which we knew nothing about,” he said.

“So, now we’re going in after the fact because we didn’t find out about it until yesterday…. If we had been notified on Saturday, we would have sent an officer in to investigate Saturday.

“But should we have been called? Yes. But the fact is we were not,” Tanner said.

“They call us all the time. I think this was just a communications snafu... .

“I am not being critical of Sun City security. I think it was just an assumption,” he added. “We were able to come in and put the pieces together after the fact and we will have a report in a couple of days, as soon as the officer has time to put all his materials together.

“It was just an unfortunate accident,” Tanner said.

DeFazio declined further comment on Wednesday.

Tanner said he decided to investigate because the S.C. Highway Patrol, which usually investigates fatals involving motor vehicles, “said they were not going to do it because they were notified after the fact.”

Cpl. Bob Beres of the S.C. Highway Patrol said it was not contacted Saturday night by Sun City, either, based on a Wednesday check of Saturday night dispatch calls.

Tanner said regulations allow Sun City security to handle initial calls for service but not to do investigations.

Beres said it was up to Sun City to call the Sheriff’s Office or the Highway Patrol for assistance. “I’m sure they would have taken a different route if the lady fell off and died right in the roadway,” he said. “I’m sure they would have called us or the Sheriff’s Office.”

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